Then, in the thicket screened from the party, I had a thought--to go back and look for her, myself. Now my lady was safe, there was nothing to prevent me. I had only to lie close among the rocks until Count Hugo left, and then I might plod back on foot and search as I pleased. In a flash I saw the poplars, and the road running beneath the ash-tree, and the woman's body lying stiff and stark on the sward. And I burned to be there.
Left to myself I should have gone too. But the plan was no sooner formed than shattered. While I stood, hotfoot to be about it, and pausing only to consider which way I could steal off most safely, a rustling warned me that some one was coming, and before I could stir, a burly trooper broke through the bushes and confronted me. He saluted me stolidly.
'Sergeant,' he said, 'the general is waiting for you.'
'The general?' I said.
'The Count, if you like it better,' he answered. 'Come, if you please.'
I followed him, full of vexation. It was but a step into the road. The moment I appeared, some one gave the word 'Mount!' A horse was thrust in front of me, two or three troopers who still remained afoot swung themselves into the saddle; and I followed their example. In a trice we were moving down the valley at a dull, steady pace--southwards, southwards. I looked back, and saw the fir trees and rocks where we had lain hidden, and then we turned a corner, and they were gone. Gone, and all round me I heard the measured tramp of the troop-horses, the swinging tones of the men, and the clink and jingle of sword and spur. I called myself a cur, but I went on, swept away by the force of numbers, as the straw by the current. Once I caught Count Hugo's eye fixed on me, and I fancied he had a message for me, but I failed to interpret it.
Steve rode by me, and his face too was moody. I suppose that we should all of us have thanked God the peril was past. But my lady rode in another part with Count Leuchtenstein and the Waldgrave; and Steve yearned, I fancy, for the old days of trouble and equality, when there was no one to come between us.
I saw Count Hugo that night. He sent for me to his quarters at Hesel, and told me frankly that he would have let me go back had he thought good could come of it.
'But it would have been looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, my friend,' he continued. 'Tzerclas' men would have picked you up, or the peasants killed you for a soldier, and in a month perhaps the girl would have returned safe and sound, to find you dead.'
'My lord!' I cried passionately, 'she saved your child. It was to her as her own!'